Electronic trading is ubiquitous in today's financial community. Generally, electronic trading allows traders to place orders through a user device such as a desktop computer.
Architectures of electronic trading systems vary widely. In some systems, a trader interacts with an electronic trading platform presented by the user device. The electronic trading platform may be an internally-developed system or an off-the-shelf system, such as the REDIPlus™ system. The electronic trading platform may communicate with pools of liquidity directly or through a routing and order management network, such as REDINet™. Such pools of liquidity include listed exchanges, ECNs (Electronic Communications Networks), market makers, options exchanges, futures exchanges, and the like. An electronic trading platform and/or management network may also communicate with in-house back-end systems to provide trade reporting and tracking functions to the trader.
Many electronic trading platforms and management networks are currently available, each providing specific features. Many of these features are intended to clearly present market information to a trader, and others are intended to facilitate trading functions. In this regard, some of these features allow a trader to customize the presentation to his liking, while others allow automated order placement.
Despite the foregoing, what is needed are improved electronic trading platforms that offer efficient interface customization and order placement.